Hong Kong, Nov 27 (IANS/EFE): Students participating in the pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong threatened Thursday to attack government buildings following a night of clashes that occurred just hours after the police cleared out one of the occupied areas.
The Federation of Students, one of the organisations driving the movement, made the threat in response to police actions that cleared out the Mong Kok area Wednesday after 60 days of occupation by the students.
"I think we have made it very clear that if the police continue taking the violent route for clearing out the place, we will take further actions," Federation of Students leader Yvonne Leung Lai-kwok said on local radio network RTHK.
"These further actions point towards government-related buildings or some government-related departments," she added.
Hours after the eviction of the students from Mong Kok, hundreds of protestors began to throng the streets of the district, shouting slogans.
This led to fresh clashes with the police who used batons to try and disperse the crowd and made 55 arrests.
By early Thursday, the police had cleared the demonstrators who threatened to return to the roads of Mong Kok at night.
Earlier, more than 6,000 policemen worked over two days to clear the Mong Kok district and restore traffic on the busy Nathan Road that had been partially occupied by the student movement since Sep 28.
The police operation which ended Wednesday also led to 156 students being arrested, including student protest leader Joshua Wong, who will be tried Thursday for "obstruction of police".
Wong, founder of the Hong Kong student activist group Scholarism, called for a student strike after Beijing's announcement in August that Hong Kong citizens could vote directly for one of two or three vetted candidates previously selected by a special commission.
That call culminated in a massive pro-democracy movement involving more than 100,000 citizens who want a direct vote in the municipal elections scheduled for 2017.
According to Hong Kong media, a special body of more than 3,000 agents will patrol the streets of the working-class district, at least till Sunday.